Confession
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Yamamoto's aching with more than just physical pain; there's guilt there, too, the things he thought about between his slow-motion heartbeats while he listened to Gokudera getting beaten behind him." Yamamoto says many good things that Reborn doesn't tell Gokudera, and Yamamoto does.
1. Rehearsal

Reborn is watching Yamamoto when he comes to.

It's a slow process, rising from the depths of exhausted unconsciousness into the aching reality of existence. Yamamoto can feel every bruise deep under his skin, the sharp-edged pain of too many cuts to even count them all. But the room smells like antiseptic, and he's wrapped in bandages instead of coated in blood, and those are both a comfort even before he turns his head to see Reborn staring at him.

"Yo, little guy." he offers. His throat is rough, the sound comes out a little more ragged than he intends, but at least it's audible. "What happened?"

"Welcome back," Reborn says with the oddly mature intonation he is fond of using. He clasps his hands in his lap, just under the oversized weight of the pacifier around his neck. "You and Gokudera were getting destroyed by Millefiore." He sounds unconcerned, just stating facts without any emotional judgment laid over them. "Then Hibari joined the fight. He saved your lives."

"_Our_ lives?" Yamamoto tries to sit up. This is a mistake. The pain that bursts up his spine is enough to flatten him to the mattress, to wipe out every thought in his head with white-hot agony before he can even identify the source of the hurt. "_Ow_."

"You probably shouldn't try to move," Reborn comments as Yamamoto subsides back to the bed. "You were quite badly injured."

"Yeah," Yamamoto says, grinning sheepishly instead of risking a laugh. "What about Gokudera? Is he okay?"

"He hasn't woken up yet," Reborn says, and everything in Yamamoto goes cold and still for a moment before he continues, "But he's stable. It should just be a matter of time, now."

"Oh." It's a tiny sound, to be so weighted with relief. Yamamoto looks away from Reborn's unblinking stare and up to gaze at the ceiling instead; his eyes are burning with oncoming tears, but he's not sure he's ready to risk lifting a hand to cover his expression, and besides Reborn doesn't seem particularly alarmed by the show of emotion. "I'm glad."

"Were you worried?" Reborn prompts.

"Yeah." Yamamoto takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. It feels good to breathe, even if it aches all across his ribcage when he does so. "I mean, I guess not while I was unconscious. But before. During the fight."

Reborn stays quiet, doesn't push Yamamoto to talk, but he's not leaving, either, just staring at him like he can see straight into his thoughts. And Yamamoto's aching with more than just physical pain; there's guilt there, too, the unpleasant aftertaste of words intended to hurt more than to help, all the pent-up things he _should_ have said instead of those he did, the things he thought about between his slow-motion heartbeats while he listened to Gokudera getting beaten behind him.

"I was awful to him," he admits. "I said a lot of horrible things and then when I was lying there all I could think about was all the things I _should_ have said instead. Those might have been the last things I said to him, after all. And I was telling him how selfish and stubborn he is and he _is_ but I love that about him, I love _him_, and I should have just said that instead, because what if we were gonna die right there?"

It occurs to him, distantly, that this is probably more information than Reborn might want to hear. Yamamoto's not actually sure if Reborn _knows_ about he and Gokudera's sometimes-relationship, the one that goes well beyond the borders of friendship. He's always just kind of assumed the other was aware, the way he always seems to know everything about everyone.

Yamamoto risks a glance to the side. Reborn is still smiling faintly, still watching him, but he's not speaking or withdrawing at all. Maybe he's asleep. All the better, then; it's nice to have someone to talk to, even if he's not paying attention to what Yamamoto is saying.

"I was just so _upset_," he continues after a moment, turning to look back at the ceiling. "I know Gokudera doesn't like trusting people, and I know sometimes he tells me to go away but doesn't really mean it, and I want to be there for him even if he thinks he doesn't need me. But it was like he _hated_ me, all of a sudden, like it was back to the first day we met except _worse_." He sighs. "But I shouldn't have said what I did. It was just - he looked so _cold_, and I hate when he looks at me like that. I guess he didn't really mean it because later he wasn't mad, when I helped him, but I didn't really save him at all in the end. It's okay, though." Yamamoto takes another of those deep, slow breaths, lets the shape of the air linger on his tongue so it carries away the tension of unsaid truths with it. "I can tell him, now, when he wakes up."

"You're not as stupid as everyone thinks you are," Reborn says.

Yamamoto twists his head to look at him. "I thought you were asleep."

"You shouldn't take things for granted." Reborn gets to his feet. On the chair, and with Yamamoto flat on his back, he's looking down at the other for the first time Yamamoto can remember. "I'm going to check on Gokudera and see if he's awake."

"Ah." Yamamoto can feel his cheeks go warm, a faint edge of embarrassment creeping into his features. "Don't tell him what I said, okay?"

Yamamoto thinks he can see Reborn's smile flicker wider, just for a moment, before he tips his chin down so his hat casts his face in shadow. "Of course."

"Thanks." Yamamoto watches Reborn hop off the chair, waits until he's made it to the door and out into the hallway before he looks back up at the ceiling. There's nothing to see but white, but it's nice to have something to stare at while he waits for Gokudera to wake up and thinks about what he's going to say to him when he does.


	2. Reality

By the time he is allowed to leave his hospital room, Gokudera's patience has long since run dry.

It hurts to walk too quickly - physical pain imposes a limit on the speed of his movement - but his room isn't far from Yamamoto's; it barely takes him five minutes to make it over the distance, even holding himself to the fast walk that is the quickest he can comfortably manage. He should be grateful the wait isn't longer, but even that eludes him; there's just frustration, embers glowing hot into the threat of a flame, that answers were _so close_ this whole time and he wasn't able to reach them.

"What did you _say_?" he's demanding as he gets the door to Yamamoto's room open, even before he can see the other boy. The idea that someone else might be in the room doesn't occur to him until he's already spoken, hits him with too-late hesitance so he stumbles over the doorway. But there's no one else there, just the familiarity of dark hair and startled gold eyes looking up at him, and then Yamamoto is smiling at him from the bed and everything goes out of Gokudera's head for a minute.

"Gokudera!" He sounds delighted, thrilled, like he's only just now reassured of the other's safety. "You're here!"

The door swings shut behind Gokudera while he's frozen in place. Seen unexpectedly Yamamoto's smile is devastating to his attention, derails every thought in his head into relief, as sudden and overwhelming as the first assurance he heard that the other boy was safe.

"Oh," he says, sounding shell-shocked and breathless. "You're okay."

Yamamoto is still smiling, he's swinging his legs out of bed and standing with every appearance of health. There's still a bandage at his temple, a white strip covering what must be a nearly-healed injury, but he's steadier on his feet than Gokudera feels, quick to cross the gap between them while Gokudera is still trying to catch his breath from the crushing impact of relief.

"It's great to see you," Yamamoto says as he comes within arm's reach. He stops there, close enough that Gokudera could reach out to touch him if he could get his arms to move, near enough that the other boy has to tip his chin up to meet his gaze. He looks _fine_, he looks like the injuries Gokudera remember never happened at all, and it doesn't make sense that _now_ is when Gokudera's throat is starting to close up and his eyes are starting to burn with the tears for what he could have lost.

He tips his chin down, lets his hair fall in front of his face to half-shield him from Yamamoto's eyes. "You _idiot_," he manages, but when he reaches out to grab at Yamamoto's shirt to shake him his motion stops halfway, leaves him with his fingers twisted tight and unmoving in the soft fabric of the other's shirt.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Yamamoto says, as if he didn't hear Gokudera's insult at all. His hand comes up, his fingers brush against the outside edge of Gokudera's wrist, and Gokudera reacts on instinct, twists his hand to grab at Yamamoto's and hold it in place while he talks to the front of the other boy's shirt.

"What did you _say_?" He has lost the certainty he had when he came into the room; his voice is trembling apart, cracking along the seams until the question sounds like a plea instead of a demand, but it's the best he can manage. "To Reborn. He said that you said good things, things you said not to tell me." It's easier to frown when he's not looking at Yamamoto's face, easier to recall his frustration when it's not skidding out on the uncomplicated delight in the other boy's expression. "You have to tell me, Yamamoto, or I swear I'll-"

"Okay," Yamamoto agrees without letting Gokudera decide what, exactly, it is he'll do. "I told him that I love you."

For a minute Gokudera forgets how spoken language works. The sounds in Yamamoto's voice break apart along the syllables, become meaningless noise as his mind sees the meaning and refuses to process what he's hearing. Yamamoto doesn't seem to notice this issue; he's still talking, pouring more information into the stuck-gear crisis in Gokudera's thoughts. "I told him that I was sorry, for what I said during that fight. It's really just that I love you, and you seemed like you hated me, and I was upset." His hand turns in Gokudera's unresisting hold, his fingers fit themselves in against the other boy's. "I shouldn't have said what I did." There's a tiny laugh, bright as sunlight after a storm. "I think you're great, you're the best thing, and I want to be with you all the time."

"Yamamoto," Gokudera says to Yamamoto's shirt, to the knot of fabric caught in the white-knuckled fist he has made of it. "That is not goddamn funny."

"I'm serious," Yamamoto says, and he sounds so utterly sincere Gokudera lifts his head, his mouth open to snap insistence to _no, really, _stop_ it_.

This turns out to be a mistake. Yamamoto is looking down at him, his mouth soft around the gentlest smile Gokudera has ever seen in his life and his eyes all but glowing with sincerity. Gokudera is sure, whatever else he may question, that Yamamoto is _not_ that good of an actor.

"Oh fuck," he says, and he looks back down at the safety of patterned fabric. His hand is starting to shake, sending tiny ripples of movement through the cloth, and his other would be trembling were it not for the steadying pressure of Yamamoto's hand around his. Gokudera's heart is beating too fast, he can't breathe around the tightness in his throat and his eyes are burning no matter how hard he blinks.

"You are _such_ an idiot," he manages to choke out. "_Damn_ it." He tries to push against Yamamoto's chest with his almost-fist, but it lacks any real force; Yamamoto doesn't even rock back from the impact. "Look." He swallows, blinks hard. "Don't think that I'm gonna say it too just because you did." He can feel Yamamoto's breathing against the strands of his hair, it's _highly_ distracting. "Even if I'm-even if it's true." He coughs hard, a desperate attempt to clear his throat. "Even if I feel the same way." He shakes his head, pushes at Yamamoto's shirt again. "I'm not gonna say it. Okay?"

Yamamoto laughs, sincere and so warm it flutters heat into Gokudera's blood. "Okay."

"And I'm sorry too," Gokudera mumbles, quick and low so maybe Yamamoto won't hear it. Yamamoto doesn't answer out loud, but his fingers squeeze tighter for a moment, his thumb sliding up to press against the side of Gokudera's wrist for a second.

Gokudera takes a deep breath. When he lets it out it's a little easier to breathe, like some knot of tension has fallen undone. "Okay." A cough, a few quick blinks, and he has himself mostly under control. "Can we stop talking and kiss instead?"

Yamamoto doesn't laugh, this time. He just tips his head down as Gokudera looks up at him, his gaze slipping to the other's mouth even before Gokudera drags at his shirt to pull him in close enough for their lips to catch together. He loses track of his surroundings pretty quickly after that, but he keeps thinking _I love you_ in the back of his mind, turning the phrase over and over and over, and by the time they break apart for a moment to catch their breath, Gokudera is starting to think he might even believe it.


End file.
